Prisoners of the Sun

So, a long time ago we were told that Tintin 2 would be adapted from the album Prisoners of the Sun (and The Seven Crystal Balls, which precedes it). Then we were told that it not be those two, and we were left guessing and speculating. Now it appears that they might have stuck with the original plan. But the info is still questionable, so don’t count on knowing all the facts just yet. The information comes from the Latinos Post that cites an interview from ScreenCrush. The line of interest for Tintin fans, written at the end of the article, is:

Kennedy was recently nominated for an Academy Award for her work on “Lincoln” and is currently in Pre-production for “The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun”

Now this isn’t a direct quote from Kennedy and we can’t find anything elsewhere to back this up. But it is possible that she revealed it and everybody is so interested in Star Wars VII, the focus of the article, that few have given the info much attention. On the other hand, it is possible that Latino Post is working on outdated information.

I still think Prisoners of the Sun would be a great adventure to introduce Calculus in (and even stay true to the chronology of Tintin). I’ve been saying this for months, but hopefully new news will come soon.

In a recent interview with Total Film, Spielberg and Jackson revealed some information regarding the sequel to ”Tintin,” . . . which is really not much information at all.

“Peter [Jackson]’s doing it. I wanted to do it, but Peter has to because we made a deal. I said, ‘I’ll direct the first one, you direct the second one.’

“And Peter, of course, is going to do it right after he finishes photography on The Hobbit. He’ll go right into the 31, 21 days of performance capture.

“We’re not telling the world what books we’re basing the second movie on yet.”

But didn’t producer Kathleen Kennedy say it’s going to be The Calculus Affair?

“We haven’t decided that yet. She’s throwing a monkey wrench into your story! It could be that. I like The Calculus Affair. So it could be.

“We have completed a story outline now. We have a writer on it. I’m just not declaring what it is. It will be more than one book, but no more than two.”

Why wouldn’t he go right to Tintin 2? It only takes a month or less on set to shoot!I see the wisdom of their choice of not revealing the stories just yet…Apparently it’s not Prisoners of the Sun, and it may or may not be the moon books (a long time ago that was considered as a better Tintin 3). That leaves no more two part stories, which means another combination of stories that is bound to receive mixed reactions. I was amazed at how well the two they blended last time worked, and especially after recently having read Horowitz’s ”The House of Silk”, I am firmly confident that he can write an adventurous story while respecting to the best degree Tintin’s original albums. So long as people understand they will not BE the original albums, the movie should be very enjoyable, like the first one was. However, if they wait too much longer I think I am going to explode. I have made little effort in concealing the fact that my vote definitely goes to The Calculus Affair. But what story would it go with? Maybe just the a small section of Red Rackham’s treasure to introduce Calculus, or do they plan on grafting in more than just that from one album into another? Jackson, I would really appreciate it if you don’t wait TOO long to reveal the albums to the world.

By popular demand, the highly praised Travels of a Boy Reporter has returned. This map tracks the journey of Tintin in his 23 adventures across the world.

Download & Print

The map is available as a download for just £10. Once you’ve downloaded it you are free to use it how you wish (non-commercially only). Print it out, have t-shirts made, use it as your computer’s desktop. You are free to use it however you want.

It comes in a variety of sizes ranging from the small 480×320 pixels, suitable for an iPhone, to the huge 6679×4722 pixels, suitable for an A1 poster.

The world-famous author and screen-writer will be writing the script for Tintin 2! This is absolutely wonderful news for those who are fans of his popular ”Alex Rider” series (me included). Anthony Horowitz is a wonderful storyteller and a master at keeping the reader interested. His own stories are full of adventure, and in the case of Alex Rider, also center around the action packed life of a teenager. He is also very experienced and is known for putting tons of research into his work. He focuses on the details,and that’s good news for a Tintin fan. Here we have the info straight from the horse’s mouth, while speaking on Richard Bacon’s radio 5 talk show:

I’m working in Hollywood at the moment, I’m writing a feature film even as we speak. I’ve been hired to write Tintin…

The Secret of the Unicorn is being directed by Steven Spielberg and was written originally bySteven Moffat, of course the writer of Doctor Who in this country. He did a couple of drafts then it was taken over by Edgar Wright… they’ve got [that] coming out at Christmas and if that film is a success and works and gets an audience I’m writing the sequel to it, Prisoners of the Sun, which Peter Jackson is going to direct.

So the story of Tintin 2 has officially been chosen. We had heard rumors, especially from Peter, but this had not been confirmed until now.

Although I’ll admit that I was really hoping for ”The Calculus affair”, ”Prisoners of the Sun” is a great choice. Just like ”Secret of the Unicorn” it is a two-part series, and even among Hergé’ s other books it is considered to be a masterpiece. The story revolves around a mysterious ”curse” that puts 7 explorers into the hospital after their return from investigating some ruins in Peru and bringing artifacts back, among them an inca mummy. One by one the explorers fall into a strange coma, and then Professor Calculus is kidnapped. Tintin and Haddock try to solve the mystery of the curse from the start, and then set off to save Calculus as well.

The book shows us just how far Tintin and Haddock will go to save a friend. They risk everything as they go through one adventure after another on their quest. In one part their train car is disconnected from the rest of the train and they slide down the mountains with no way of stopping their car. In another,they have to sneak onto a ship that says it is under quarantine with armed men on board. In the jungle they face vicious condors and crocodiles. Then they have to cross over a raging waterfall. And to top it all off, they stumble onto a secret hiding place where it turns out the ancient Incan people are still alive, where the whole gang is condemned to die at the stake, lit by the very power of the sun. It is not hard to see why this adventure was chosen to be adapted to the big screen. And I can’t think of a better person for the job to be writing the script than Anthony Horowitz.

For those of you wondering how this will tie in with ”Red Rackham’s Treasure” being the second movie (or at least the beginning of it), I’m not sure how it will play out. It looks like they will introduce Calculus at the beginning of the movie and then kidnap him almost right afterwards. Just how much of Red Rackham’s Treasure, if any, will be in the movie? We will see. All we know is that Calculus HAS to be in Tintin 2,and we do not believe he is in Tintin 1 because he has not been cast. I think they will either tie in Red Rackham’s treasure at the very beginning of the film like they are doing with The Crab with the Golden Claws for the first movie, or take Calculus out of the ending of The Secret of The Unicorn-Red Rackham’s Treasure for Tintin 1 and have them find the treasure in the basement, then introduce him for Tintin 2 at the start of the film. However they do it, I’m sure they know how much the fans love Calculus and will make sure we have plenty of time to see him in the movie.

Very special thanks to Britto and Pro-man who found this information!!! I really appreciate it! Keep up the excellent work!

“There will be no cell phones, no TV sets, no modern cars. Just timeless Europe.” – Steven Spielberg

Le Monde magazine interviewed Steven Spielberg about his work on Tintin. The interview was presumably done in English and translated to French for publication and I’m translating it back into English via Google so the wording may not be spot on. However, the meaning is clear, the Tintin movie will not be some hideously re-imagining of Tintin. Spielberg goes on to say.

“Peter Jackson and I have the opportunity to honor the art of Hergé, his tone, his palette, his characters.” He denies [The translation is garbled here, possibly "to amend the famous Tintin tuft"?] He added: “The body language is very important. There is no question of touching it. We religiously respect the art of Hergé.”

From this interview, it certainly sounds like the Tintin movie will stick closely to the classic Tintin look-and-feel though they have previously described it as “film noir”. We may have a better idea in the new year as Peter Jackson has previously indicated that the first images of the CGI will be released in January.

Also due in January is an announcement on Peter Jackson’s choice of books for his film or films. The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun are widely tipped as favourites.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has released its entire collection of airline posters online. It features some 700 posters from the early days of flying including many from the 1920s and 1930s. Not only are many of them beautiful works of art but these are the posters that Herge would of seen as he started work on Tintin.

Aircraft play a significant role in many of Tintin’s adventure and flying was a very glamorous activity up until the 1950s. In these days of budget airlines and three hour check-in queues, it is very easy to forget just how enthralling the idea of flying was to Herge’s generation.

One of the problems I had in creating the Travels of a Boy Reporter map was working out how Tintin and Captain Haddock travelled from Belgium to Peru in between The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun. At the end of book one we see them boarding a flying boat and at the start of Prisoners, they are in Peru. I hunted the web and aircraft forums for information on flying boat routes from Europe to South America but I could not find any. Consequently, I guessed at a route involving flying down to the Cape of Africa and across the South Pacific.

Now, thanks to the Smithsonian, I can update the map with a correct route. The poster above shows routes for Imperial Airlines (the main flying boat operator) in the late thirties and there is a route from Europe via the west coast of Africa to South America. This map also shows a similar route as does this airmail route map. These are the maps Herge would of seen as he planned Tintin’s adventures so I can confidently update my map.

Peter Jackson was at the San Diego Comic Convention, talking about a lot of things including Tintin.

Jackson’s work on Tintin is still in early stages but he insists that the films are being made by people who are true Tintin fans. He also said that the design of the film was intended to be as true to creator Herge’s original designs as possible but with added textures. Otherwise, he indicated that they might as well just do a live-action version, which neither he nor Steven Spielberg (who is directing the first film) wanted.

Different blogs have picked up different comment from the event. Chud is reporting:

Jackson said that he was still trying to figure out which book he wanted to adapt, and that he would probably be rereading the entire Tintin series to make his decision.

That said, Jackson mentioned that he was currently leaning towards either The Seven Crystal Balls or Prisoners of the Sun. It’s likely that he would actually adapt both, as Prisoners of the Sun is the sequel to The Seven Crystal Balls. The story involves an Incan curse brought on by the discovery of a Peruvian mummy.

As the first film will combine The Crab with the Golden Claws and The Secret of the Unicorn into one story, would Jackson really do anything other than Red Rackham’s Treasure? Failing to do so would miss the opportunity to introduce the character of Professor Calculus whose first appearance is in Red Rackham’s Treasure. It would also beg the question ‘What is the Secret of the Unicorn?’ if it is not a map for Tintin & Haddock to follow? Are they going to skip the whole adventure to the Caribbean and have Tintin solve the puzzle whilst imprisoned in Marlinspike’s cellar?

However, if Jackson is doing Red Rackham’s Treasure he had better get a move on. With multi-part films (Lord of the Rings, for example) the release dates of the films need to be relatively close, no more than a year apart, other audiences will lose interest in the project. With Secret of the Unicorn coming out in late 2011, a release date of summer or late 2012 for the second film is logical. This means the script needs to be written and the cast scheduled for motion capture.

UPDATE: More information and quotes.

As for the second movie, he reveals that production is pencilled in for the second half of 2010, a year before the first one’s release. “I’ve got to get through The Hobbit first, then we’ll move onto that. At the moment we’re keeping our options open, but I am very partial to The Seven Crystal Balls/ Prisoners Of The Sun. I’m going to read them all again before deciding which to have a go at.”

The EW interview quoted above adds some details. The first Tintin film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is currently at the first-cut stage. It will take two years to do all the animation and rendering needed for the final product. (The film has to be edited first because no one wants to pay for expensive rendering on shots that won’t end up in the final cut.) Peter drops the remark that he hasn’t decided which Tintin books to include in the second film, and that he and Spielberg would like to do a longer series if the first films succeed.

Herge liked to mix real and fictional geography in his story-telling, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly.

Machu Picchu doesn’t appear directly in the books but it can be assumed as the basis for the temple in The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun. Located high in mountains, in a remote part of Peru, it was the last strong hold of the Incas. A sacred site, one of the main buildings is called the Temple of the Sun. The site was ‘discovered’ and made famous in 1911 by the American explorer and historian Hiram Bingham.

This facade appears in The Red Sea Shark though you may be more familiar with it from Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. In reality it is in Petra, an ancient city in modern-day Jordan and is one of the true wonders of the world. At its peak, around 200AD, it was a city of over 20,000 people with a sophisticated water management system that allowed the city to thrive in the middle of a desert.

Loch Lomond itself never appears in the books but it is a name familiar to all Tintin fans as Captain Haddocks favourite tipple. It is particularly prominent in The Black Island as Tintin visits Scotand but it crops up regularly in a number of books. There is a real world Loch Lomond Distillery who do tours. So, if you are ever in Scotland, call in, see how they make the whisky and have a wee dram for Captain Haddock.